Retake’s 2019 Legislative Report Card is a great tool for understanding how the Roundhouse works, but Eric Shimamoto goes much further in explaining why a few conservative “Democrats” control the entire State Legislature.
We didn’t post a blog yesterday because we figured your email was jammed with Giving Tuesday donation requests. Today’s post is short because I want you to have time to review the video. It is extraordinary. After the video is something just for fun, a Trump meme that will make you smile/cringe along with a link to 25 other Trump memes. First, a couple of brief announcements before we move on to the video.
LANL and the Mid-Town Project. We will try to write up something about the LANL-Midtown Project situation, but info is not easy to find. But on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. on the Retake radio show on KSFR, 101.1 FM, I will interview Greg Mello, Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group. I expect him to shed a good deal of light on LANL expansion plans and how Santa Fe’s Midtown Project could wind up an important part of that expansion. Stay tuned.
Retake Conversation About Non-Violent Direct Action, Thursday, Dec. 12, 6pm-8pm at 1420 Cerrillos. Over the months so many of you have commented on the blog or emailed me directly that we need to take bolder action to push our leadership toward the changes needed to address the looming climate catastrophe.
So, we invited YUCCA (Youth United for Climate Crisis Action) and the emerging local Extinction Rebellion to discuss what they are planning and how you can support their planned direct actions. To liven it up, we decided to make the event a potluck, with us providing pizza and you salad or dessert and your own beverage. We also plan to update you on our dialog with advocacy allies and what might be in store for us in the 2020 legislative session.
Don’t assume we know you are coming. Please write to retakeresponse@gmail.com to RSVP. If you don’t RSVP, there won’t be enough pizza! NOTE: There will be no live stream of this event.
Let’s Fix the NM State Senate
A crystal clear video explaining why we don’t get what we want and what we can do about it.
Some of you may have been lucky enough to see the presentation created by Eric Shimamoto, an ABQ activist. He presented it at a few Indivisible meetings and at a Retake meeting. We thought so highly of it, we worked with Andy Fertal of People’s Progressive Media to produce a video of the presentation. This is essential viewing. Eric has laid out with great precision how a few NM Democratic Senators caucus with the GOP, vote with the GOP, and use their leadership positions to foil efforts to pass so many great bills. I highly recommend this and encourage you to share it with friends.
25 Trump Memes for Your Amusement
Sharon Shoemaker sent me a link to 25 Trump memes. You can view them all by clicking here, or you can simply wait for different memes to appear in future posts.
Click here for 25 very funny memes skewering Trump. We all need a laugh now and then.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Categories: Uncategorized
Check out who in the round house belongs to ALEC.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_Mexico_ALEC_Politicians.
About Amazon (and Walmart). I have survived well without buying from Walmart and buying only two items from Amazon.
We can vote with our dollars every day!
Why give our $ to those who impoverish us while at the same time destroy our communities??
The video provides an excellent overview of how a small group of Dinos/FakeDems in the NM state Senate has managed to grab all the handles of power in the that body. Until this ‘wag the dog’ issue is addressed, passing a progressive legislative agenda in NM will remain a forlorn hope.
Implementing a NY style NoIDC campaign in NM will certainly be difficult, since many of the districts involved are very difficult to campaign in, due to the size and low population density of several of the districts involved (e.g. 4, 28, 30 and 35). Sapien (Dist.9 near Albuquerque) and Papen (Dist. 38, around Las Cruces) should be easier to campaign against, and getting Papen out would have the added benefit of forcing a new vote on President pro tem.
On a side note: Looking at the shape of some of these senate districts, it seems that an independent redistricting commission might be worth thinking about.
William, you are forgetting the amount of dark money flowing into NM for smear campaigns — mostly for Torres-Small. We must find a way to connect with the harder to campaign districts…. and be honest with factual information on the DINO in their midst.
Geography can be a challenge, but don’t let all of the open space on the map fool you. For instance, the most “spread out” Senate District on this list is SD28 (Ramos). And although the district is made up of 65 voter precincts, more than half of the votes in the last Democratic primary came from just 15 precincts located in Socorro and Silver City. There’s plenty of population density in those 15 precincts, and a smart campaign can run a very real, very effective ground game that covers all those neighborhoods.